Method and apparatus for assessing the status of work waiting for service

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides a system and method for assessing the status of work waiting for service in a work queue or a work pool. Work items are placed in the work queue or work pool and have a service time goal. The work items in the work queue or work pool are scanned and a required queue position for each work item is calculated according to the amount of time remaining prior to the expiration of the service time goal and weighted advance time for servicing of work items in the work queue or pool. An array of counters has elements which correspond to required queue positions. Upon the calculation of the required queue position for a work item, the counter corresponding to the required queue position is incremented. When all of the work items are scanned, the array of counters is analyzed to predict a future state of the work queue or work pool.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 10/673,103, filed Sep. 26, 2003, entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FORASSESSING THE STATUS OF WORK WAITING FOR SERVICE”, which is incorporatedherein by this reference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to the scheduling of work items in aresource allocation system. In particular, the present invention isdirected to service time goals for work items in a queue awaitingservice, and assessing the status of work items in queue relative totheir service time goals.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In present day automatic contact distribution (ACD) systems, resourceselection and allocation algorithms are commonly employed to performcalculations related to timing of operations and service time goals forwork items in queue. These calculations are performed, for example, whena telephone call is received at a call center. When such a call isreceived, it is typically assigned to a pool of resources responsiblefor answering telephone calls. Furthermore, such calls generally have aservice time goal, such as three minutes, which is the goal for an agentto answer the call. These service time goals are useful to help ensure acustomer is not waiting to speak to an agent for a long period of time,which may reduce customer satisfaction.

In such ACD systems, contacts incoming to a contact center are answeredand handled by a plurality of resources. The ACD system automaticallydistributes and connects incoming contacts to whatever resource,generally agents, have the skill set suited to handle the contacts andare free, i.e., not handling other contacts at the moment. As usedherein, a “contact” refers to any mode or type of contact between twoentities, including without limitation voice calls, VoIP, text-chat,e-mail, fax, electronic documents, web forms, voice messages, and videocalls, to name but a few.

The contacts are placed in different queues based upon preestablishedcriteria, such as business/service policies, objectives, and goals foreach contact type, and are typically placed in each queue in the orderof their arrival and/or priority. Due to the random and peaked nature ofinbound contacts from customers, a contact center may become overloadedwhen no suitable resources are available to handle contacts as theservice time goal for the contacts expires. Furthermore, a contactcenter may have sufficient resources to handle present contacts whichhave service time goals currently expiring, but may not have enoughresources to handle the contacts which have a service time goal at somepoint in the future.

As is known in the art, it is common for such ACD systems to includealgorithms which detect whether service time goals are being met, andalso to predict if service time goals are likely to be met in thefuture. Numerous techniques have been devised for determining an actualor anticipated wait time for each queued item, and the queued items aretypically serviced based on the actual and/or anticipated wait time.However, such techniques generally look at only the head of the queue,in order to determine if the contact center is currently behind target,or is in a state of immediate risk. Techniques which are used to predictif service time goals are likely to be met in the future generally onlylook at the tail of the queue, or the last item in the queue, and make adetermination of whether it is predicted that this item will be servicedat or before the service time goal for that work item, and give a yes/noanswer as to whether there is a future risk. As will be understood, thelast item in the queue may follow a number of items which all have aservice time goal which will expire at substantially the same time.Thus, it is possible that the last item in a queue will show no futurerisk, while there in actuality is a future risk associated with therelatively heavy workload which precedes the last work item in thequeue. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a method andapparatus which is able to determine future risk, and also determinewhen such risk will arise and the amount of resources required tocorrect the potential shortfall in resources.

Another problem with such techniques is that they were designed for realtime servicing. As mentioned above, it is common to receive contacts inthe form of e-mail, fax, electronic documents, web forms, voicemessages, which do not require immediate attention of an agent, butrather are required to be attended to within a preset service time goalperiod. For example, the contact center may have a service time goal forelectronic mail of one business day. Likewise, web forms which arereceived may have a goal of being answered within two business days.Such contacts are referred to as “back office contacts,” which areplaced into a queue which is to be serviced by a back office, meaningthat they are not serviced by agents in real time with a contact.

In some ACD systems, such work items are placed in unordered workqueues. These items often are received at different times, and havedifferent service goals. Thus, if the items were to be placed in anordered work pool, with the contacts ordered by the amount of time leftto service the contact, each time a contact is added to the queue, thequeue may have to be reordered. As will be understood, reordering a workqueue can consume a significant amount of resources in a system, thus itmay be advantageous to place such work items in an unordered work poolor work queue. One problem with placing contacts in an unordered workpool is that resource allocation algorithms are generally designed tooperate using ordered work pools. Thus, it would be advantageous to havean unordered work pool with resource allocation algorithms which areable to assess the work in the unordered work pool to determine a statusof the pool and make predictions regarding potential future resourceshortfalls for the work pool.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

These and other needs are addressed by the various embodiments andconfigurations of the present invention. The present invention isdirected generally to a method and apparatus for assessing the status ofwork awaiting service in an ordered or unordered work pool. Themethodology is particularly useful in contact centers.

In one embodiment, work items, such as contacts, product orders, servicerequests, are placed into a work queue for service by a resource. Thestatus of work waiting for service is assessed by generating, based atleast in part on the work queue, an ordered set of items related to thework items in the work queue, and analyzing the ordered set to predict afuture state of the work queue. A required queue position (RQP) for eachwork item in said work queue, may be determined, the RQP based on aservice time goal for each work item and an estimated time forcompletion of work items. The ordered set of items may be generated bycreating an array of counters, each element in the array of counterscorresponding to a predefined range of required queue positions. Thearray of counters may be modified by incrementing a counter in the arrayof counters associated with the RQP for each work item. The requiredqueue position is determined, in one embodiment, for each work item, bysubtracting an amount of time since the work item was received from theservice time goal for the work item to obtain a remaining time for thework item. For each work item, determining a required queue position mayinclude dividing the remaining time for the work item by the weightedadvance time (WAT) of the work queue. The weighted advance time is themeasure of the average time that is required for a work item to advanceone position in the queue. The calculation of weighted advance time isdescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,898, the disclosure of which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The ordered set of items, in one embodiment, is generated by determininga range of required queue positions which correspond to each item withinthe ordered set, and incrementing a counter associated with the itemwithin the ordered set which corresponds to a required queue positionassociated with each work item. The range of queue positions for eachitem in the ordered set may be set to preestablished criteria, such as,for example, each item in the ordered set may correspond to one queueposition, or each item in the ordered set, where the number of the itemis N, may be 2^(N-1)<RQP≦2^(N).

Analyzing the ordered set to predict a future state of the work queue,in one embodiment, includes the steps of creating an index variable,setting the index variable to one, creating a sum variable, setting thesum variable to zero, calculating a new sum as the sum of the previousvalue of the sum variable and the value of the item in the ordered setwhich corresponds to the index variable, determining if the sum isgreater than the index, setting a state to “Future Risk” when the sum isgreater than the index, and incrementing the index and repeating thecalculating a new sum, determining if the sum is greater than the index,and setting a state when the sum is not greater than the index. Inanother embodiment, a range of queue positions corresponds to each itemwithin the ordered set, and the determining step includes determining ifthe sum is greater than the highest number queue position which isassociated with the item in the ordered set which corresponds to theindex variable.

The analyzing of the ordered set may further include determining ifthere are additional items in the ordered set, and setting a state to“On Target” when there are no additional items in the ordered set. Theanalyzing of the ordered set may also include, when the sum is greaterthan the index, predicting a time of the “Future Risk”. The time may becalculated as the product of the index and the estimated time forcompletion of work items. The analyzing of the ordered set may include,when the sum is greater than the index, determining an extent of the“Future Risk”. The extent of the future risk is calculated, in oneembodiment, as the difference between the sum and the index. The extentof the future risk is calculated, in another embodiment, as thedifference between the sum and the highest number queue positionassociated with the item in the ordered set which corresponds to theindex variable. In another embodiment, the invention provides a computerreadable medium containing instructions for performing the steps fordetermining the status of work waiting for service, and a logic circuitoperable to perform the steps for determining the status of work waitingfor service.

The invention also provides, in another embodiment, a computationalcomponent for performing a method, the method comprising: determining arequired queue position (RQP) for each of a plurality of work items, theRQP based on a remaining time for the work item and a weighted advancetime for the work queue incrementing a counter in an element of an arrayof counters, the element corresponding to a predefined range of requiredqueue positions; and analyzing the array of counters to predict a futurestate of the work items. The determining a required queue position stepmay include, for each work item, subtracting an amount of time since thework item was received from a service time goal for the work item toobtain a remaining time for the work item. The determining a requiredqueue position step may include determining the weighted advance timefor the work queue and for each work item, dividing the remaining timeby the weighted advance time for the work queue. The incrementing acounter step may include determining a range of required queue positionswhich correspond to each element within the array of counters, andincrementing a counter associated with the element within the array ofcounters which corresponds to the required queue position obtained inthe determining a required queue position step. In one embodiment, thepredefined range of queue positions for each element in the array ofcounters is one. In another embodiment, the predefined range of queuepositions for each element in the array of counters, where the number ofthe element is N, is 2^(N-1)<RQP≦2^(N).

In one embodiment, the analyzing step includes the steps of: creating anindex variable; setting the index variable to one; creating a sumvariable; setting the sum variable to zero; calculating a new sum as thesum of the value of the sum variable and the value of the counter in theelement of the array of counters which corresponds to the indexvariable; determining if the sum is greater than the index; setting astate to “Future Risk” when the sum is greater than the index; andincrementing the index and repeating the calculating a new sum,determining if the sum is greater than the index, and setting a statewhen the sum is not greater than the index. In one embodiment, thedetermining step includes determining if the sum is greater than thehighest number queue position which is associated with the element ofthe array of counters which corresponds to the index variable. Theanalyzing step may also include: determining if there are additionalelements in the array of counters; and setting a state to “On Target”when there are no additional elements in the array of counters. Theanalyzing step may also include, when the sum is greater than the index,determining a time of the “Future Risk”. The time of the future risk iscalculated as the product of the index and the weighted advance time ofthe work queue. The analyzing step may further include, when the sum isgreater than the index, determining an extent of the “Future Risk”. Theextent may be calculated as the difference between the sum and theindex. In another embodiment, the analyzing step further includes, whenthe sum is greater than the highest number queue position associatedwith the element of the array of counters which corresponds to the indexvariable, determining an extent of the “Future Risk,” calculated as thedifference between the sum and highest number queue position associatedwith the element.

Another aspect of the invention provides a table maintained in anelectronic memory of a contact center, comprising an identity of atleast two work items, and an ordered list having entries associated witha predefined range of required queue positions for the work items. Theentries, in one embodiment, indicate required queue positions for thework items. The predefined range of required queue positions for eachentry in the ordered list, in one embodiment is one. In anotherembodiment, the predefined range of required queue positions for eachentry in the ordered list, where the number of the entry is N, is2^(N-1)<RQP≦2^(N).

Another aspect of the invention provides a contact center for servicinga plurality of contacts received from a plurality of customers,comprising: a plurality of workstations corresponding to a plurality ofresources; a central server in communication with the plurality ofworkstations, comprising at least one queue of contacts, each of thecontacts having an associated service time goal, and a workloadmonitoring agent operable to (a) monitor the queue of contacts; (b)assess a state of the queue of contacts with respect to the service timegoals for the plurality of contacts; and (c) determine a number ofcontacts which are likely to not meet their service time goals and atime at which the service time goal for the number of contacts willexpire. In one embodiment, the contacts in the queue comprise one ormore of real time and non-real time contacts. In another embodiment, theworkload monitoring agent is further operable to identify a weightedadvance time of the work queue and determine a required queue positionfor each of the contacts The workload monitoring agent may determine therequired queue position based on the weighted advance time of the workqueue, an elapsed time since the contact was received at the queue, anda service time goal for the contact. The required queue position iscalculated, in an embodiment, as the difference between the service timegoal and the elapsed time divided by the weighted advance time of thework queue. The contacts within the plurality of contacts may have atleast two service time goals. The workload monitoring agent is furtheroperable to determine, in an embodiment, a representation of requiredqueue positions associated with the contacts in the queue. In oneembodiment, a predetermined workload level exists when a queue positionin the representation of required queue positions is less than a numberof enqueued contacts ahead of the queue position in the representationof required queue positions. The time which the predetermined workloadlevel will likely exist is the product of the weighted advance time ofthe work queue and queue position at which the predetermined workloadlevel will likely exist. The number of contacts required to be servicedis the difference between the required queue position and the number ofenqueued contacts before the required queue position.

These and other advantages will be apparent from the disclosure of theinvention contained herein, particularly when taken in conjunction withthe attached drawings.

The above-described embodiments and configurations are neither completenor exhaustive. As will be appreciated, other embodiments of theinvention are possible utilizing, alone or in combination, one or moreof the features set forth above or described in detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a contact center of one embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 2 is a plot of work item volume (vertical axis) versus time(horizontal axis);

FIG. 3 is flow chart diagram illustrating the operational steps forcalculating required queue positions for work items of one embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart diagram illustrating the operational steps foranalyzing an array of counters of one embodiment of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 5 is a table illustrating elements of an array of counters andranges of required queue positions associated with each elementaccording to one embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.

A contact center 6 comprises a central server 10 (such as a Definity® orMulti-Vantage™ Enterprise Communications Server running modifiedAdvocate™ software of Avaya, Inc.), a set of data stores or databases 12containing contact or customer related information and other informationthat can enhance the value and efficiency of the contact, a plurality ofservers, namely a fax server 24, a data network server 20, an emailserver 16, and other servers 13, a private branch exchange PBX 28 (orprivate automatic exchange PAX), a first plurality or set of resources14 (which are shown as being human agents) operating computer workstations 15, such as personal computers, and/or telephones 17 or othertype of voice communications equipment, all interconnected by a localarea network LAN (or wide area network WAN) 36, and a second pluralityor set of resources 100 (which are shown as being human agents) alsooperating computer work stations 15, such as personal computers and/ortelephones 17 or other types of voice communications equipment,connected to the PBX 28 via a public switched telephone network or PSTN48 and to the central server 10 via a data network 44, such as theInternet. The fax server 24, web server 20 and email server 16 areconnected via communication connections 40 to the data network 44.

The other servers 13 can be connected via optional (dashed)communication lines 22, 32 to the PBX 28 and/or the data network 44. Aswill appreciated, other servers 13 could include a scanner (which isnormally not connected to the PBX 28 or network 44), interactive voicerecognition IVR software, VoIP software, video call software, voicemessaging software, an IP voice server, and the like. The PBX 28 isconnected via a plurality of trunks 18 to the PSTN 48 and to the faxserver 24 and telephones 17 of the resources 14. As will be appreciated,faxes can be received via the PSTN 48 or via the network 44 by means ofa suitably equipped personal computer. The PBX 28, fax server 24, emailserver 16, web server 20, and database 12 are conventional.

As will be appreciated, the central server 10 is notified via LAN 36 ofan incoming realtime or non-realtime contact by the telecommunicationscomponent (e.g., PBX 28, fax server 24, email server 16, web server 20,and/or other server 13) receiving the incoming contact. The incomingcontact is held by the receiving telecommunications component until thecentral server 10 forwards instructions to the component to forward thecontact to a specific workstation and/or resource. The server 10distributes and connects these contacts to workstations of availableresources based on a set of predetermined criteria. The resourcesprocess the contacts sent to them by command of the central server 10.

In the architecture of FIG. 1 when the central server 10 forwards arealtime contact such as a telephone call to a resource, the centralserver 10 also forwards information from databases 12 to the resource'scomputer work station for viewing (such as by a pop-up display) topermit the resource to better serve the customer. The information istypically effected by the establishment of a data communications linkbetween the central server and the target resource's workstation.

In one configuration, the first and second pluralities or sets ofresources correspond, respectively, to employees and nonemployees of thebusiness or enterprise operating the contact center. For example, thesecond plurality or set of resources can be contractors, subcontractors,employees of another organization (including a bidding house), and thelike. The first plurality of resources are served directly or supportedby the central server/PBX and commonly service contacts to the center.In other words, the first plurality of resources or set ofresources/workstations are subscribers to the enterprise network definedby the contact center 6 or are within the premises serviced by theserver/PBX. The second plurality or set of resources/workstations aregenerally not served and/or supported directly by the central server andare typically geographically dislocated from the first plurality or setof resources. In other words, the second plurality of resources or setof workstations/resources are not subscribers to or supported by theenterprise network and are external to the premises serviced by the PBXand central server. The second set of resources may thus be “external”in that they are not directly supported as terminal endpoints by theserver PBX (e.g., they do not have an extension associated with aninternal endpoint serviced by the switch/server). Communications withthese resources are directed through the PSTN 48 (for telephone calls)(and are received at an external port of the switch/server) and throughthe data network 44 (for data communications such as customer-relatedinformation transmission). The second set of resources may be used toaugment or support the first set of resources, such as by servicing lessvaluable or profitable work items through, for example, a bidding typeprocess discussed in copending U.S. Patent Application “Contact CenterResource Allocation Based On Work Bidding/Auction”, filed on even dateherewith, to Flockhart et al., which is incorporated herein by thisreference.

The central server 10 includes a memory 30 having a plurality of firstsets 38 of contact queues 42 and 46 corresponding to the first pluralityof resources. Each set of contact queues conventionally serves and holdscontacts (or work items) for a different work type and/or for realtimeversus non-realtime contacts. In the depicted embodiment, queues 42serve non-real-time contacts while queues 46 serve real-time contacts.This embodiment is particularly suited for a Customer RelationshipManagement (CRM) environment in which customers are permitted to use anymedia to contact a business. In a CRM environment, both realtime andnon-realtime contacts must be handled and distributed with equalefficiency and effectiveness. Within each set of queues, each queueholds contacts of a different priority and/or different type (e.g.,e-mail, fax, electronic or paper documents, webform submissions, voicemessages, voice calls, VoIP calls, text chat, video calls, and thelike). The priority of a contact is determined according to well knownpredefined criteria. Each queue may function as a first-in, first-out(FIFO) buffer memory, and include a plurality of items, or positions 50,each for identifying a corresponding one enqueued contact. The positionat the head of the queue is considered to be position 1, the nextsubsequent position to be position number 2, and so forth. The queuesmay also be unordered work queues, in which the work items contained inthe queues are not in a FIFO memory. Such an unordered configuration maybe beneficial, for example, for a non-real-time queue having work itemswith differing service time goals where re-ordering the work queuefollowing the completion of each work item would take a significantamount of resources.

Memory 30 further includes a wait time determining agent 54. As its nameimplies, this agent determines an estimate of how long a contact that isplaced in a queue will have to wait before being delivered to a resourcefor servicing and/or has already waited for servicing. The estimate maybe derived separately by the agent 54 for each work item in each queueof each set, and is referred to herein as an estimated wait time (EWT).

For realtime contacts, the EWT is based on any suitable algorithm, suchas the average rate of advance of contacts through positions 50 of thecontacts' corresponding queue referred to herein as a weighted advancetime (WAT). This estimate is derived separately by the agent 54 for eachqueue. An illustrative implementation of the agent 54 for real-timecontacts is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,898, which is incorporatedherein by this reference.

For non-realtime contacts, the EWT estimate is generally determineddifferently than for realtime contacts. One approach for calculating thewait time is set forth in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/641,403,filed Aug. 17, 2000, entitled “Wait Time Prediction Arrangement forNon-Real-Time Customer Contacts”, which is incorporated herein by thisreference.

Memory 30 can further include a work item selecting agent 26. Agent 26is conventional. It selects a work item from one or more of the queuesto be serviced by an available resource based on wait time and/orbusiness/service policies, objectives, and goals for each contact type.

The memory further includes a workload monitoring agent 70, as will bediscussed below, for predicting potential deficiencies or surpluses forthe first set of resources. A bid item selecting resource 74, asdiscussed in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/673,105entitled “Contact Center Resource Allocation Based On WorkBidding/Auction”, filed on Sep. 26, 2003, to Flockhart et al., may beused if a deficiency in the first set of resources is predicted, forconfiguring and tracking a bidding process for each work item andselecting the winning bidder for such work items.

The workload monitoring agent 70 receives EWT information from the waittime determining agent 54, monitors the length of each queue, thenumbers of available resources in the plurality of first resources, thetypes and priorities of contacts in each monitored queue, andanticipated workload levels. Based on this information, the workloadmonitoring agent 70 predicts when the contact center must take action inorder to meet predetermined business/service policies, objectives, andgoals for each contact type.

A graphical illustration of prediction of the amount of work itemscompleted as a function of time is contained in FIG. 2. As illustratedin FIG. 2, the rate at which work items can be handled as a function oftime is represented by line 104. The sinusoidal waveform 108 representsthe number of work items that must be serviced by the resources as afunction of time. In the example illustrated in FIG. 2, there is asurplus of available resources earlier than time t₂ and a surplus ofwork items after time t₂. If the workload monitoring agent 70 predicts asurplus work item condition at time t₁, actions may be taken that areassociated with excess resources, such as making number of surplusresources available for other uses. If the workload monitoring agent 70predicts a surplus of work items, actions associated with a deficiencyin resources may be taken such as a bidding process in which the surpluswork items are assigned to one or more of the members of the second setof resources no later than time t₂.

With reference now to FIGS. 3-4, the operation of the workloadmonitoring agent 70 of one embodiment of the present invention isdescribed in more detail. As discussed above, work queues 42, 46 containwork items which are to be serviced by a particular pool of resources.As mentioned, in the embodiment of FIG. 1, work queues 42 are associatedwith non-real-time contacts and may include more than one type ofcontact, with each contact having a differing service time goal.Non-real time contacts may be “back office” type contacts which includecontacts of several different types. For example, items in work queues42 may include email enquiries, web forms, and purchase requests, amongother things. Email enquiries may have a service time goal of one hour,web forms may have a service time goal of four hours, and purchaserequests may have a service time goal of one day. These contacts, in oneembodiment, are placed in work queues 42 in the order in which they werereceived. Accordingly, the first item in a queue may not be the itemwhich has the shortest amount of time before the expiration of theservice time goal. Such a situation may arise when the first item on aqueue is a purchase request (having a service goal of one day), and thesecond item on the queue is an email enquiry (having a service goal ofone hour). In one embodiment, the workload monitoring agent 70 assesseseach of the work queues 42, 46, and assigns a state to each of the workqueues 42, 46 to indicate if the queue is “behind target,” “on target,”has an “immediate risk,” or has a “future risk.” Furthermore, if thequeue is in the behind target, immediate risk, or future risk states,the workload monitoring agent 70 is operable to make a prediction as tothe amount of resources required to solve the problem. If a future riskstate is predicted, the workload monitoring agent 70 is also operable tomake a prediction of when the system will enter the risk state.

When determining the state of the work queues 42, 46, the workloadmonitoring agent 70, on an event basis and/or on a periodic basis, willexamine a work queue or pool to determine the current state of the workitems relative to their individual service time goals. Each work item inthe queue or pool will have a service time goal, as described above. Theremaining time for each work item in the queue or pool may be calculatedas:Remaining time=(Service Time Goal)−(Current Time).If any work item has a negative remaining time, then the state of thework item and the work queue is “behind target.” In such a situation, inone embodiment, the workload monitoring agent 70 generates anappropriate message to indicate the behind target state. The message maybe sent to appropriate personnel or software system that may then takeactions to remedy the problem. The message may include electronicnotifications to appropriate personnel, display on a user interface, orother indication. The workload monitoring agent 70, in one embodiment,then proceeds to calculate required queue positions for each of the workitems in the work queue. In another embodiment, if a behind target stateis detected, the workload monitoring agent 70 simply generates theappropriate alert and does not proceed to calculate required queuepositions.

When determining the required queue position, WAT for the queue isdetermined. As mentioned above, the WAT is the average elapsed timebetween each service event from the queue. For example, if work itemsare serviced from the queue at an average rate of one every six seconds,the WAT for that queue is six seconds, meaning that, for example, thesecond item in the queue would be predicted to be completed in 12seconds. Once the WAT is determined, the required queue position foreach work item in the queue or pool is then calculated as the remainingtime for the work item divided by the WAT, and rounded down to the nextinteger number. For example, if a work item has 20 seconds remainingbefore its service time goal expires, and the WAT for the queue or poolis six seconds, the prediction is that the work item must be serviced byone of the next three agents to become available to service work fromthis queue in order to meet the service time goal. Thus, the requiredqueue position for the work item is three.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a flow chart diagram illustrating theoperational steps for calculating required queue positions for each ofthe work items in the queue is now described. An ordered list associatedwith the work items in the work queue or pool is created, which in oneembodiment is an array of counters referred to as the Required QueuePosition Array (“RQPA”). Each element in the RQPA indicates the numberof work items which are required to be completed during the requiredqueue position. The required queue position is indicated by the positionof the element in the RQPA. Thus, the second element in the RQPAindicates the number of work items with a required queue position oftwo. A counter, independent of the RQPA, referred to as the “BehindTarget Count,” is also associated with the work queue or pool, andindicates the number of work items which are behind target. Theassessment of the work queue is initiated, as indicated at block 150.Each element of the RQPA is initialized to zero, and the Behind TargetCount is initialized to zero, as indicated by block 154. This isaccomplished by setting each element in the RQPA, and the Behind TargetCount, to have a value of zero. At block 158, the first item in the workqueue is scanned. The required queue position (“RQP”) is calculated forthe work item, as noted by block 162. Following the calculation of therequired queue position for the work item, it is determined whether therequired queue position is less than zero, as noted by block 163. Anegative required queue position indicates that the remaining time isnegative, and the work item is behind target. If the required queueposition is negative, the Behind Target Count is incremented, accordingto block 164. If the required queue position is zero or greater, theelement in the RQPA array corresponding to the required queue position,RQPA[RQP], is incremented, according to block 166. At block 170, it isthen determined if there are more work items in the work queue. If thereare no more work items, it is determined if the Behind Target Count isgreater than zero at block 171. If the Behind Target Count is notgreater than zero, the RQPA is analyzed, as noted by block 174. If theBehind Target Count is greater than zero, the workload monitoring agentsets the current state to be “behind target,” indicating that the timeof the problem is the current time, and that the extent of the problemis the Behind Target Count, according to block 172. If there are morework items in the work queue, the next work item in the work queue isscanned, according to block 178. Following the scan of the next workitem, the operational steps described with respect to blocks 162 through178 are repeated. Thus, following the assessment of the work queue, theRQPA is created which includes items in each array element correspondingto the number of work items that must be completed by the timecorresponding to the queue position of the RQPA.

Referring now to FIG. 4, the operational steps for analyzing the RQPAare described for one embodiment of the present invention. Initially, asnoted by block 200, it is determined if element zero of the requiredqueue position array (RPQA[0]) is greater than zero. This indicates thatone or more work items has a required queue position of zero, whichindicates that the work item should have been serviced by the previousagent to become available. By the time the next agent becomes availablethat can process the work item, it is likely that the work item willalready have missed its service time objective. In such a case, theworkload monitoring agent sets the current state to be “immediate risk,”indicating that the time of the problem is the current time, and thatthe extent of the problem is the value of RQPA[0], as indicated by block204. If it is determined that RQPA[0] is zero, the workload monitoringagent 70, at block 208, sets an index variable to one, and a sumvariable to zero. The workload monitoring agent 70 then sets the sumvariable to be the total of the sum, plus the value of the requiredqueue position array element corresponding to the index variable(Sum=Sum+RQPA[Index]), as noted by block 212. At block 216, it is thendetermined if the sum is greater than the index. If the sum is greaterthan the index, this indicates that the total number of work items whichneed to be completed is greater than the total number of work items thatare predicted to be completed at the current rate of service work itemsas measured by the WAT.

If the sum is greater than the index, the state of the system is set to“Future Risk,” the predicted time of the problem is the product of theindex and the WAT (Index*WAT), and the extent of the problem is thedifference between the sum and index (sum-Index). If the sum is notgreater than the index at block 216, the index is incremented, accordingto block 224. The determination is made at block 228 if the end of theRQPA has been reached. If the end of the RQPA has been reached, thestate of the system is “On Target,” meaning that there are no predictedshortfalls in resources for the work items that are in the work queue orwork pool. If at block 228, it is determined that the end of the RQPAhas not been reached, the operational steps of blocks 212 through 228are repeated until either the end of the RQPA is reached, or until astate of “Future Risk” is found. For example, if the index is at six,and the sum of the work items with required queue positions of six orless is nine (Index=6, Sum=9), this indicates that three work items arepredicted to not be completed by their service time goal. If the WAT is15 seconds, the time that this problem will occur is predicted to be 90seconds (index*WAT=6*15=90 seconds). The extent of the problem ispredicted to be three work items. This information, in one embodiment isdisplayed on a user interface, and an electronic notification isforwarded to appropriate personnel or software systems that may thenattempt to correct the problem before it occurs. While the embodiment ofFIG. 4 stops when evidence of a problem is detected, in anotherembodiment the entire array is scanned, even if a “Future Risk” state isfound, in order to find all potential problems and/or the most severeproblem.

Furthermore, in one embodiment, the workload monitoring agent 70monitors the work queues for instances in which surplus resources arepredicted. For example, if the state of the system is “on target,” theworkload monitoring agent 70 may determine how many surplus resourcesare available. Such surplus resources may be allocated to differentfunctions, for example. When determining the number of surplusresources, and the time of the surplus, similar calculations asdescribed above may be utilized. The difference between the sum and thehighest number queue position associated with an element in the RQPA maybe utilized to indicate how many surplus resources are predicted for thetime associated with the queue position. For example, if the sum is 20and the highest queue position associated with the RQPA element is 30,this indicates that ten surplus resources are predicted to be availableat that point in time while maintaining service time goals for workitems in the work queue. If the state of the system is “on target,” thisindicates that these surplus resources may be used for other tasks whilemaintaining service time goals for all of the work items presently inthe queue if removing the surplus resources would not place the state ofthe system to future risk.

As can be seen, the system and method provided above produces results ofboth a time of the potential problem, as well as the extent of thepotential problem, which is beneficial in proactive solving of thepotential problem. Furthermore, this system and method may be used inboth ordered work queues, as well as unordered work queues or workpools. This is a result of each work item being evaluated for itsrequired queue position, and the array of counters having elements whichcorrespond to the required queue positions which are incremented eachtime a work item having that required queue position is scanned.Accordingly, even if work items are unordered, when each item isscanned, its required queue position is included in the array ofcounters which may then be assessed to determine the status of workqueue or work pool.

It will be understood that the embodiment of FIGS. 3-4 is illustrativeof one of many techniques which may be used to assess the status of workitems waiting for service. Other alternatives exist for creating andanalyzing an ordered list associated with work items waiting forservice, and would be readily understood by one of skill in the art. Forexample, a required queue position array may be initialized with eachelement within the array having a numerical value equivalent to theposition of the element within the array. Thus, position one of thearray would have a value of one, position two of the array would have avalue of two, and so on. When a work item is evaluated and the requiredqueue position for the work item is determined, the value of theelements in the required queue position array associated with therequired queue position and higher may then be decremented. In thismanner, the elements within the required queue position array areupdated to indicate a status of the work waiting for service. The RQPAmay then be scanned for any negative items, which would indicate thatmore work items are present than are anticipated to be completed priorto the time associated with that required queue position.

In another embodiment, the array of counters does not include everyrequired queue position as an element of the array, but rather a rangeof required queue positions are assigned to particular array elements.FIG. 5 is a table illustrating an array of counters 250, andcorresponding queue positions 254 associated with each element 258 ofthe array. In this embodiment, for the elements in the array ofcounters, each element 258 (“N”) in the array stores the number of workitems having a required queue position (“RQP”) in the range of:2^(N-1)<RQP≦2^(N). Thus, as illustrated in the table of FIG. 5, forexample, array element three would contain a count of the number or workitems having a RQP in the range of five through eight, and array elementfour would contain the count of the number of work items having a RQP inthe range of 9 through 16. When scanning work items in this embodiment,any work items which have an RQP of zero will place the system into an“immediate risk” state, and the array is then analyzed to determine anyfuture risk states.

The analysis of the array can detect potential problems in the definedrange of RQPs, rather than at every RQP. If work queues are of asignificant size, this embodiment results in a performance increase dueto the array being much shorter, thus consuming fewer system resources.In this embodiment, an array of counters containing ten elements canhandle work queues or work pools of about 1000 work items. Additionally,this embodiment places greater focus on work items having service timegoals which expire in a relatively short amount of time, where there isless time to react to any detected problems, while problems with workitems having service time goals which expire in a relatively long amountof time are indicated in an approximate time range. The increasedgranularity of lower required queue positions allows for immediateattention to short term problems, while the decreased granularity ofhigher required queue positions allows for longer term planning andsolutions. Thus, if a potential problem is detected in, for example,required queue positions 65-128, appropriate personnel may be alertedwho then have a relatively long period of time to take corrective actioncompared to a situation where a potential problem is detected inrequired queue position 4. While the embodiment of FIG. 5 uses RQPranges which are powers of two, any ranges of RQPs may be used forelements in such an array, as will be readily understood by one of skillin the art.

The foregoing discussion of the invention has been presented forpurposes of illustration and description. Further, the description isnot intended to limit the invention to the form disclosed herein.Consequently, variations and modifications commensurate with the aboveteachings, within the skill and knowledge of the relevant art, arewithin the scope of the present invention. The embodiments describedhereinabove are further intended to explain the best mode presentlyknown of practicing the invention and to enable others skilled in theart to utilize the invention in such or in other embodiments withvarious modifications required by their particular application or use ofthe invention. It is intended that the appended claims be construed toinclude the alternative embodiments to the extent permitted by the priorart.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a contact server that tracksan identity of at least two work items, and wherein the contact centerserver uses an ordered list having entries associated with a pluralityof elements for storing a count of the number of work items having arequired queue position, RQP, wherein at least two of the work itemshave different RQPs based on at least two service time goals whereineach element is assigned by the contact center server, to apredetermined range of RQPs and wherein a size of a predetermined rangeof RQPs is different for at least some of the elements; and a PrivateBranch Exchange (PBX) that: receives the at least two work items; andholds the at least two work items until the contact center serverinstructs the PBX to distribute the at least two work items to one ormore workstations.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein: the entriesindicate required queue positions and an element associated therewithfor the at least two work items.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein: asize of a first range of RQPs is one and a size of a second range ofRQPs is greater than one.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein thepredefined range of required queue positions for each entry in theordered list is where the number of the entry is N, is2^(N-1)<RQP≦2^(N).
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the RQP for eachwork item is also based a weighted advance time of a queue containingthe work items.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the ordered list isused to predict a state of a common queue.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein the state of the common queue comprises a future risk state. 8.The system of claim 1, wherein the ordered list is analyzed to determineif there are additional items in the ordered list and setting a state toon target when there are no additional items in the ordered list.
 9. Amethod comprising: identifying by a contact center server at least twowork items, wherein the contact center server uses an ordered listhaving entries associated with a plurality of elements for storing acount of the number of work items having a required queue position, RQP,wherein at least two of the work items have different RQPs based on atleast two service time goals, wherein each element is assigned, by thecontact center server, to a predetermined range of RQPs and wherein asize of a predetermined range of RQPs is different for at least some ofthe elements; receiving, by a Private Branch Exchange (PBX), the atleast two work items; and holding, by the PBX, the at least two workitems until the contact center server instructs the PBX to distributethe at least two work items to one or more workstations.
 10. The methodof claim 9, wherein: the entries indicate required queue positions andan element associated therewith for the at least two work items.
 11. Themethod of claim 9, wherein: a size of a first range of RQPs is one and asize of a second range of RQPs is greater than one.
 12. The method ofclaim 9, wherein the predefined range of required queue positions foreach entry in the ordered list is where the number of the entry is N, is2^(N-1)<RQP≦2^(N).
 13. The method of claim 9, wherein the RQP for eachwork item is also based on a weighted advance time of a queue containingthe work items.
 14. The method of claim 9, wherein the ordered list isused to predict a state of a common queue.
 15. The method of claim 14,wherein the state of the common queue comprises a future risk state. 16.The method of claim 9, wherein the ordered list is analyzed to determineif there are additional items in the ordered list and setting a state toon target when there are no additional items in the ordered list.